


It's Not A Murder (but it's still home)

by AngeNoir



Series: Inktober 2017 [8]
Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Anthropomorphic People, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Anthropomorphic, Family, Found Family, Gen, Implied Relationships, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 18:07:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12304728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: Jake Jensen had always stuck out. The unrelieved black of his wings and feathers always dragged attention to him. He had hoped the army would change that, but it didn't look like it was going to.Inktober Drabble 8 = Universe: The Losers / List: Anthropomorphic Characters / Prompt: The Crow





	It's Not A Murder (but it's still home)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for inktober, based on the prompt "The Crow" from an Anthropomorphic Characters list. (You can see [and prompt me!] my initial post about my inktober writings [here](http://outercorner.tumblr.com/post/165938959460/so-i-am-gonna-be-trying-this-inktober-thing-but).)

Sometimes, Jake wondered whether he was being punished for not keeping his mother and sister safe.

Everyone other Bird-Kin were brightly colored - even his piece of shit father had had brilliant white wings edged with a smoky blue. But Jensen’s wings and feathers were black - nothing but black. No speckled pattern, no white edges, no colors hidden in the undersides of his wings. The small underfeathers that crawled down his arms and up his neck were black; his crest and hair were all pitch black, and he skulked around his school.

_You’re a crow. A group of crows is called a murder; you gonna murder someone like your old man?_

_You think you’ll ever achieve anything with feathers like those?_

_Stop acting so shifty; this is why no one likes crows!_

Jake had pushed his way out of high school, into college, worked against everyone he could possibly work against, hoping and praying that one day, someone would look at him and see more than the danger, the foreboding omen that was his wings. He didn’t fly except late at night, kept his wings tucked as close to his body as he could, hell, he’d even looked into feather dyes and bleaches, but a myriad list of allergens and health problems as a child kept him from ever following through.

It was only Bird-Kin that had these types of stereotypes, honestly. Well, Four Leg-Kin had their own outcasts, but nothing as severe as how shunned crows were.

Well, the Cold Blood-Kin were all, to a one, outcasts, but they also were fairly untouched by such shunning.

In any case, Jake spent his formative years in school sitting at tables with the yena-Kin, the vultr-Kin, the snake-Kin, and the drago-Kin. None of them really wanted anything to do with him, and he really only wanted a flock to call his own.

So it was understandable why he would be drawn by the lure of the army, the promise of battle bonds creating a family and a home for someone who had no family and had no home. His sister had left years ago - had dropped out of school once she got pregnant and moved in with their maternal grandmother, and his mother had died years ago (supposedly from natural causes, but everyone knew what Jake’s father was like, and no one believed that natural causes bull). He had no one, and nothing.

And then he got to the army, and found that those prejudices were just as present, if not more amplified. As crow-Kin, he was constantly expected to be far more blood thirsty than he was; as crow-Kin, his drill sergeants would berate him for his inability to keep his gun on him, to aim well on the course, for his bad vision, for his health problems that made him a liability more than anything. He worked hard, bulked up, pushed past his weaknesses and started spreading his wings more, intimidating people with the color and their size. Started wearing non-regulation glasses, shoving his weaknesses in their face.

After numerous teams, numerous infractions, numerous problems with authority, he was on his last chance when he was shoved into the Losers with little to no ceremony.

His CO was wolv-Kin, his XO bear-Kin. Their transport and mechanical expert was leo-Kin.

Their sniper was falc-Kin.

Their sniper had such beautiful wings - a soft, cloudy blue, speckled with black and white, tipped in a deeper blue. They were not as large as Jensen’s own wings, but watching their sniper soar upwards, alight onto the ground, perch in a tree - it was poetry in motion. Next to him, Jake felt unnaturally white and black, too stark, too clumsy. Alvarez’s dark skin and the slate blue feathers of his crest and hair made him look ancient and wise, delicate and lethal.

How could Jake compare to that? He couldn’t, so he didn’t even try. He knew this was his last chance, and so he tried - he really did - to get along with everyone, to behave, to act in the expected manner. He got the ugly, standard regulation glasses, he kept his hacking and computer hobby to a minimum, and he kept his opinions locked firmly behind his teeth.

...It helped a little, that he had a huge fucking crush on Alvarez. It meant that he was already trying to keep his tongue and his words to himself.

Their first mission, Jake had literally pulled the mic away from his mouth to keep his team from hearing his chatter. He needed this team to keep him, otherwise he’d be back out in the world with nothing to do except bother his sister and his niece at their home and hope he could stay out of trouble.

It meant he was delayed a bit, when relaying where is was on the mission, which had gotten him a stern lecture, but it was better than having everyone listen as he clucked and crooned at the server he was hacking. He figured he’d take it as a success and next mission he did the same thing. He endured a repeated lecture about how it was important to be immediate in his responses and check in regularly. And as he sat in his seat, harness strapped as they were choppered out, Alvarez came over and sat down next to him.

Jake squinted hard at Alvarez.

“Keep your mic in,” Alvarez said, voice as smoky as his wings. “Do not worry.”

“Easy for you to say,” Jake blurted out. “You haven’t had authority issues because people can’t handle your talking. And I’ve been reliably told my voice is too harsh to listen to for long periods.”

Jake had already been around long enough to know that something had happened with Alvarez’s previous team, something bad, and Alvarez didn’t speak much because of it. So when Alvarez spoke again, Jake was floored.

“Your voice is pleasing. Keep your mic in,” Alvarez repeated, then ran fingers through Jake’s crest, preening a few of the feathers on the back of Jake’s neck that hadn’t smoothed down properly.

Stunned, Jake could only watch as Alvarez walked away to his perch, strapping himself in and pulling his hat down low over his eyes.

So Jake tried. He started talking more, and though Pooch complained and Roque threatened to chop his balls off, Alvarez always seemed to smile.

And, well, it was stressful and hard to keep himself tamped down for too long, for too much. It was practically impossible to keep yourself locked up for long, and harder for Jake than most, so when he inevitably ended up hacking something he shouldn’t have, or using the glasses (that sat better on his face, that weren’t blurry, that didn’t have scratches) that weren’t regulation, well, he was waiting for his CO to kick him out.

Yet it never came. Roque never followed through with his threats, and in fact worked twice as hard as all of them to keep them safe and calm and comfortable. Pooch complained loudly, but Jake came to know that Pooch complained loudly about everything, and everyone. The only thing he never complained about was his fiance, Jolene, a beautiful tigre-Kin who had agreed to marry Pooch the next time he had more than three days leave off base.

Jake’s CO was not as focused on them as the XO, but he cared. He tried to keep them cohesive, filtered down the BS orders and separated the shit from the doable, and had them complete their missions as best as they could.

And Alvarez.

Cougar.

Cougar, with pinpoint accuracy with his rifle. Cougar, the top shot in all the spec ops, across companies and agencies, even. Cougar, with his quiet way and silent yet informative looks.

Jake may not have found a murder, or a family. But he found a home.


End file.
